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Thomas Sander v. City of Dickinson, North Dakota, et al.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, No. 18-1560 · judgment July 12, 2019

Certiorari denied · January 13, 2020

Pre-decision estimate: 4% cert probability

Before the decision, roughly the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a circuit split argued in the petition, an Eighth Circuit decision below, and a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition), and down for a state or local-government respondent.

Questions presented

Whether a civil litigant’s right to trial by jury under the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is violated when a United States District Court granting summary judgment ignores the non-moving party’s evidence and adopts the moving party’s version of the facts, and when a United States Court of Appeals summarily affirms such a summary judgment without conducting a meaningful de novo review.
Whether, in particular, Thomas Sander’s right to trial by jury under the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was violated by the misuse of the summary judgment procedure in this federal civil rights case.

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Richard H. Honaker
Honaker Law Offices, LC

For respondent
Scott Kenneth Porsborg
Smith Bakke Porsborg Schweigert & Armstrong

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Proceedings

Jan 13 2020
Petition DENIED.
Dec 18 2019
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/10/2020.
Dec 05 2019
Waiver of right of respondents City of Dickinson, Kylan Klauzer, and Jeremy Moser to respond filed.
Dec 04 2019
Waiver of right of respondent Terry Oestreich to respond filed.
Nov 19 2019
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due December 23, 2019)